Baked is better: A healthier, easy spin on popular shrimp poppers

Everything about these little shrimp poppers are good: Relatively healthy, easy to make and they are sure to please a crowd.Heather Lynn Peters

Sometimes you make things for those you love, despite how you feel about that particular meal. While I love shrimp, I don't particularly love it breaded and certainly not fried. But my daughter loves it: Those little breaded shrimp poppers you get at local restaurants are on the top of her list.

However, the fried, breaded shrimp bites make me cringe. So I've limited those types of meals to "occasional" or on a special day, like a birthday.

But that didn't seem like much fun.

I wanted to give her a chance to have her favorite food at home, without all the grease and breading. So I gleaned the Internet for healthier alternatives. I added my own spin to the baked shrimp recipes out there, and here's what I came up with using whole wheat Panko crumbs.

Ingredients:

30 uncooked large shrimp, peeled and deveined

1-1/2 cups whole wheat panko (Japanese) bread crumbs

2 egg whites

2 tablespoons of fat-free milk

3 tablespoons of tempura (or flour, if you don't have tempura)

2 teaspoons of Old Bay Seafood Seasoning

1 teaspoon of course sea salt

1 teaspoon of black pepper

¼ cup of grated Parmesan cheese

For dipping, make your own cocktail sauce: 1 cup of Ketchup and 1 tablespoon of horseradish mixed together in a bowl. That's it. Simple stuff!

Directions for the shrimp:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place bread crumbs in a shallow bowl. In another shallow bowl, combine egg whites and milk. In a third shallow bowl, combine tempura, seafood seasoning, salt and pepper. Dip shrimp in the flour mixture, egg mixture, then bread crumbs. Sprinkle with the grated Parmesan.

Place shrimp on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray; spritz shrimp with cooking spray. Bake at 400° for 8-12 minutes or until shrimp turn pink and coating is golden brown, turning once.

Serve hot and dip in cocktail sauce.

Enjoy!

Please check out The Spunky Kitchen Facebook page for more foodie fun. Spunky Kitchen is a column by Heather Lynn Peters featuring her own recipes and her family recipes for MLive. Heather also works with the chefs from the Culinary Institute of Michigan for a special recipe or holiday menu to present to Spunky Kitchen readers each month.

Heather Lynn Peters covers police and fire for MLive/Muskegon Chronicle. Email her athpeters@mlive.com and follow her on Twitter @HLPNEWS.